I came to very similar conclusions... I really hear you on this. I am going to do a rebranding and change my whole approached to fashion with my blog. Since the beginning of the year I have only get a few things only made in the West, handmade or thrifted. Today I had a breakfast meeting with a few readers and really enjoyed having to do with down to earth real people. They were only 3 but I really enoyed my time. I recently got an email from a big UK brand asking me to update their link on my website. I told them not to worry because soon I will only have a few links instead. I will still use affiliate but for those brands I actually buy and fit my ethics. I will give more space to things I am really into. We are empaths and we can't take all that without considering ourselves

www.xloveleahx.co.uk: Blogging is a double edged sword because there's no standard pay for anything. Some people don't know how to value themselves (I never used to either) so PR companies and brands often try to get you to do things for the lowest sum possible. I'm halfway through creating a media kit and I'm going to be very clear about what I consider insulting. If someone wants to send me something that costs £20 it's going to take up to an hour taking photos depending on what it is, maybe an hour to edit them, and an hour to write the post. It's OK for bloggers who get 10 parcels delivered a day as they can put a bunch of low value items into round up posts so they're not making 3 hours work out of a £20 item, which makes it equivalent to less than minimum wage here! But I get things so rarely it's just not possible for me to do many round up posts, so it's a lot of time and effort wasted for very little 'pay'. So I'm not going to do this low value stuff anymore. It's just not worth my time, unless it's my own choice to.